The Ableton Midi Clip playhead mistery
Posted: Sat Nov 15, 2025 7:25 am
Good morning everyone. This has probably already been discussed without a real solution, and I’ve already contacted support from Live as well as Novation/Akai, but for me this whole situation makes absolutely no logical sense.
Controlling the playhead in the MIDI editor is impossible. What I’m trying to do is use Live while moving the mouse as little as possible. For this reason, I bought the “poor man’s Push,” the APC 64 (one of the worst pieces of hardware I’ve ever purchased, with practically zero support), only to discover that the Arrangement View—the place where you work when you’re trying to finish a track—had no controls at all. No playhead control, no markers, nothing.
I then bought a Midi Fighter Twister and Control Surface Studio. I mapped everything possible onto the Midi Fighter, but scrubbing the playhead—both in MIDI clips and in the Arrangement—was impossible. We had long discussions on the forum asking ourselves why it’s so difficult in Live to have a playhead that behaves normally.
In the meantime, I was using a Minilab 3, which has DAW control and, almost miraculously, it does control the playhead in the Arrangement. But it lacked other functions, like the click… which apparently is something incredibly difficult to include in a controller mapping (
). Then I noticed the new Launch Control XL 3.
The thing is, people are always very vague when talking about controllers for Live, and as always, to have basic functions (click, stop—and yes, the Launch Control does not have a Stop button that can be pressed twice to restart from the beginning, so you’re forced to rely on a marker), you end up needing two or three controllers. One does one thing, another does something else, and from what I read, even Push is limited.
It’s worth mentioning that I spent hours with support from every brand and from Live, but the answer is pretty much always the same: in every case, it’s nobody’s responsibility.
Now I find myself with three controllers that collectively replace one, feeling quite disappointed—especially considering the money spent—and I’m thinking of throwing everything out for a Stream Deck… which will however still have the same navigation problems when working with MIDI or audio.
I downloaded the Cubase demo, since the Launch Control 3 also has a preset for Cubase, and yes, when you open the MIDI editor you can see the playhead moving in sync with the arrangement—exactly as it should be.
Why, when I move left and right with the arrow keys in the MIDI editor, do I get a playhead that is useless when I want playback to start from that point? Why am I forced to use the mouse and click the speaker icon to get normal playback behavior in the MIDI editor? Why do I need to have both the MIDI editor and Arrangement View visible if I want to scrub, and then “guess” where I am in the MIDI clip while scrubbing the main timeline?
The most incredible thing is that the MPC VST and its MIDI editor work better than Live’s MIDI editor, and when I’m on the MPC One+, I can scrub from the Launch Control and see the playhead move.
I even bought programmable keypads to keep shortcuts handy, but for MIDI clips there’s really not much you can do.
My fear is that I’ll buy a Stream Deck, do all the possible mappings, and still have the same problems when working inside a MIDI clip.
Is there any chance that this MIDI clip behavior could be made “normal,” or will it never be possible to avoid using the speaker icon to get immediate playback feedback inside the MIDI clip?
Sorry for the rant; I know this post will probably be ignored, but the frustration is really strong. Have a good day and a nice weekend.
Controlling the playhead in the MIDI editor is impossible. What I’m trying to do is use Live while moving the mouse as little as possible. For this reason, I bought the “poor man’s Push,” the APC 64 (one of the worst pieces of hardware I’ve ever purchased, with practically zero support), only to discover that the Arrangement View—the place where you work when you’re trying to finish a track—had no controls at all. No playhead control, no markers, nothing.
I then bought a Midi Fighter Twister and Control Surface Studio. I mapped everything possible onto the Midi Fighter, but scrubbing the playhead—both in MIDI clips and in the Arrangement—was impossible. We had long discussions on the forum asking ourselves why it’s so difficult in Live to have a playhead that behaves normally.
In the meantime, I was using a Minilab 3, which has DAW control and, almost miraculously, it does control the playhead in the Arrangement. But it lacked other functions, like the click… which apparently is something incredibly difficult to include in a controller mapping (
). Then I noticed the new Launch Control XL 3.The thing is, people are always very vague when talking about controllers for Live, and as always, to have basic functions (click, stop—and yes, the Launch Control does not have a Stop button that can be pressed twice to restart from the beginning, so you’re forced to rely on a marker), you end up needing two or three controllers. One does one thing, another does something else, and from what I read, even Push is limited.
It’s worth mentioning that I spent hours with support from every brand and from Live, but the answer is pretty much always the same: in every case, it’s nobody’s responsibility.
Now I find myself with three controllers that collectively replace one, feeling quite disappointed—especially considering the money spent—and I’m thinking of throwing everything out for a Stream Deck… which will however still have the same navigation problems when working with MIDI or audio.
I downloaded the Cubase demo, since the Launch Control 3 also has a preset for Cubase, and yes, when you open the MIDI editor you can see the playhead moving in sync with the arrangement—exactly as it should be.
Why, when I move left and right with the arrow keys in the MIDI editor, do I get a playhead that is useless when I want playback to start from that point? Why am I forced to use the mouse and click the speaker icon to get normal playback behavior in the MIDI editor? Why do I need to have both the MIDI editor and Arrangement View visible if I want to scrub, and then “guess” where I am in the MIDI clip while scrubbing the main timeline?
The most incredible thing is that the MPC VST and its MIDI editor work better than Live’s MIDI editor, and when I’m on the MPC One+, I can scrub from the Launch Control and see the playhead move.
I even bought programmable keypads to keep shortcuts handy, but for MIDI clips there’s really not much you can do.
My fear is that I’ll buy a Stream Deck, do all the possible mappings, and still have the same problems when working inside a MIDI clip.
Is there any chance that this MIDI clip behavior could be made “normal,” or will it never be possible to avoid using the speaker icon to get immediate playback feedback inside the MIDI clip?
Sorry for the rant; I know this post will probably be ignored, but the frustration is really strong. Have a good day and a nice weekend.